Schism – A quaint adventure in Shounen Ai with the occasional flock of strangeness by ShiniJekka
Crazed Author's Disclaimer – If I owned fictional characters I'd make them eat potatoes until they burst. There would also be Showtune Sundays and Meatloaf Mondays. Let's all rejoice that I don't own any fictional characters.
Crazed Author's Rant – Um. Ohisashiburi… It's been a while. No excuses from me, just apologies. I hope the story is still any good, I had to re-read it myself a couple of times to get the feel for it again... if this chapter seems awkward, it's because I'm trying to fit into my old skin. Countless nods toward New Obsessions and Vainglorious for providing the motivation to blow the dust from my keyboard.
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Chapter 6 – To Pull the Pieces From the Sand…………………………………………………………………………………………………
Amusingly, Ken can't seem to decide what to watch. Though he can't seem to help watching the progress of the Digidestined, he would prefer to keep his eyes on me; that much is easily apparent by the way in which my every slight motion brings his attention careening back. It's becoming a habit of mine to make little noises in the back of my throat; slight displeased sounds that he's well familiar with, I should think, and watch him tense up as though waiting for a hand to fall. Most amusing is that fact that one of these times that hand will fall; he just won't see it coming. That wouldn't be any fun at all.
After pointing out his ragtag group of "rescuers" on the few monitors that still worked, I let him stand and deliberate for a time while I returned to the dilapidated control panel, typing short commands and prompts toward several systems to see what still worked, and what was lost. The overall conclusion: things are worse than I would have liked, but not beyond repair. I built this empire up from nothing, after all. Building one up from the remains of the previous should hardly be considered an effort. That would imply that the work were some sort of "chore". Ludicrous.
I enjoy every second of it.
Take, for instance, the Ken issue. Although one would have to acknowledge that the recent events revolving around him and Daisuke Motomiya are most assuredly not the central part of my machinations, this does not mean I should not expend a certain amount of concentration and effort thereupon… nor does it suggest that time spent working on that angle is not time well-spent. Rather the opposite; it is, bluntly, delicious. The way Ken spirals confusedly, wrenching between guilt and fear and anger, how delightfully lost he looks when he meets my eyes, is equally as engaging as watching Motomiya come to his realizations. Seeing the veritable lightbulb above his head flicker into regrettably dim illumination was sheer poetry: the way his eyes widen as his pupils shrink, and how his hands spasm into tight little fists… poetry, plain and simple. Better than the simple, black-and-white workings of say, a physics problem, or the delicate inner intricacies of one of my dark spirals. The sort of verses these two are capable of goes far beyond the respectable structure of mathematics. Consider for a moment the quickening of Daisuke's breath as you loom over him, knowing the power of your own tongue over your own lips. Consider the possibilities of a body that you also own, and of eyes like colorful bruises, glassy with pain or pleasure.
Poetry to rival the finest of haiku, which are only words, only ink on paper. The artisan world may keep its lyrics, its imagery of melting snow and the gentle trails of a falling autumn leaf.
Aa… while I've been thinking to myself, Ken has returned his gaze to the monitors. I suppose he must be quite anxious to meet up with those other children. Just one last thing to recover, however…
"What are you looking for?" he asks quietly, and I feel the feather weight of his gaze as I kick aside some fallen pieces of ceiling, the fine powdery dust rising and settling again around my boots.
"My whip," I reply shortly, and from the corner of my eye he jerks in slight surprise. Is he startled that I would bother to answer him? Perhaps he should be; I so rarely give straight answers.
"It's at the bottom of my closet," Ken says after a short while, and his voice is tight.
"Wanted a souvenir, did you?" I chuckle, nudging at another piece of debris with a foot. "Does our Dai-chan know about this bit of memorabilia?"
"Our?"
I'll allow this much to Ken: he's gained a bit more of my attention. He didn't just echo, he actually hissed that word… forced it out of his mouth like an angry cat. Like I would.
How intriguing.
"Our," I confirm, one eye still on him as I continue to prod through the fallen pieces of my fortress. "Yours, and mine as well. I believe you do know the definition of 'our', intellectually inferior though you may be…"
"He's not yours," Ken snaps angrily. "And don't you dare ever … ever touch him like that again, do you understand?!"
I can't help it. I snicker. In fact, I encourage it, and soon the mocking laughter is rebounding off the cold metal walls, surrounding us like an audience, a hateful chorus. It spooks him… or perhaps he's just realized whom exactly it is he's mouthing off to. Ken was never one to stomp over thin ice, but we seem to have found a very touchy nerve.
"I do believe I'll touch him however I want to, Ken." I keep my voice to a reasonable, light tone. I think I'm close to it now, though it's really a shame so much of the ceiling has collapsed. I may have to consider putting some supports in here before working on any other systems. "You may find that he might prefer the sorts of... sensations... I can give him, over your sad, clumsy little advances."
His mouth opens, and snaps shut, and opens again. It seems he doesn't dare use any of the retorts that are coming to his mind. Pity. He'd almost developed a spine, and they're all so much more fun to break when they've got actual fire. That's why I enjoy the time I spend with Motomiya so much. The boy is fire.
Ah. Here it is…
"Daisuke is not 'yours'," Ken finally says, but it's under his breath, and I would describe the tone as sullen. "And why are you still looking? I told you, your whip is at the bottom of my closet."
"He is as much mine as he is yours," I murmur as I bend to push away the fragmented remains of what appears to have once been part of the temperature control. "That much is only obvious. It hardly matters in the long run, I suppose, as I own you both…" And my fingers close over the handle, so that when I straighten back out, the length of the whip is pulled from amidst the rubble, slow and methodic. I run it through my hands, gloved fingers sliding over the texture as I let the satisfied smile spread.
This really is much better.
Ken looks so surprised, I nearly laugh in his face. Instead, I start systematically coiling the leather. His hands twitch slightly, though I don't think he himself notices.
"…how?"
His voice is so small. I step over the assorted broken things, crossing the distance between us. His eyes seem large in his pale visage… it's all I can do to keep myself from putting my hands to his face and teaching him how life really is cruel.
That's not on the schedule for today, however. I tease him with the whip, brushing it against his cheek, and grin when he jerks his head away.
"Because, my regrettably lesser half, you're still too hung up on what's 'possible' to ever get anything accomplished. We spend half of our existence in a world made of zeroes and ones and you're too busy concentrating on what you think you know to be 'truth'." I step away from him slightly, looking at the flickering screens that are providing most of the illumination in the room. The group of children is still doggedly approaching, and I suppose we ought to go out and meet them, soon. It's only proper.
He follows my gaze for a moment, but doesn't seem to be ready to give up his line of thought. Ken has this problem with letting go, you see.
"Even if that's so, how can it be here when I know that it's also stuffed in a box back in the real world? There are two whips, now? What else can be duplicated like that?"
"What else, indeed," I murmur, prodding at him pointedly with the butt of the whip. "You continue to amaze me with your relentless idiocy. You should wonder more at how a whip from a digital world, a whip that is nothing but written data, could be brought through the gate to your 'real world'. You ask all of the wrong questions, Ichijouji, and meanwhile the answers are laughing in your face."
A somewhat doubting, if not outright haughty, gaze meets mine. This child continues to both amuse and irritate me. You'd think, after all this time, he would have learned who his betters were, yet he continues to dredge up these incessant displays of sporadic backbone. It may be appropriate. I am a part of him, after all, though he denies it. If he were brighter perhaps he could add the factors together, and see what's going on and why.
But we've gone over this many times. He is not the genius of us.
"Come, Ken," I order suddenly, shortly, turning on a heel and brushing past him. "Your friends are waiting."
"Wait."
A few more strides, and I stop in my tracks, head slowly turning to the side, not quite looking at him over my shoulder.
"Wait?" I echo.
He's silent. I turn slightly, gazing at him in half-feigned interest. He looks surprised, or sorry for having said it, and a shiver runs through him… but his hands clench into fists, and steel enters those silken eyes.
Hmn.
"What are you planning to do?" Ken asks… no, demands. I raise my eyebrows slightly, and smile.
"They've come all this way for you, haven't they? Don't you want to go meet them?"
"But it doesn't make sense. What's your plan? You can't have taken me all this way just to hand me over to them… what are you going to do?"
"I have to have a plan?" I ask in amusement.
"You always do," he replies with a frown. "You always have. So, then, what is it?"
"If you can't see it for yourself," I scoff gently, "then I'm not going to simply hand it to you. Perhaps the problem is that you can no longer understand the level at which I work."
An embarrassed flush creeps over his features. He's thinking of his school… of failures and futilities, and of the way his parents look at him when they think he isn't aware of it. I see it all in his eyes: the disappointment in the shape of his family's mouths and eyes, and of the whispers of his schoolmates. He tells himself under his breath that it doesn't matter, because is a better person now. He whispers to himself countless times, like a ward against the stares and frowns. It's a shame, really, because he doesn't even believe it himself.
I have seen and heard this all with him, watching his world from behind his eyes, the veritable information center that he'd believed to be a prison. I have seen through him, in so many ways. This doubt of his, this will to please everyone, to live up to everyone's expectations… I know him, you see. I'm closer to him than he'd like. I am in his skin. I know how he works.
And so he can never win.
"Come," I say, again resuming along the path that leads us outside. His friends are, after all, very close now, and I would rather confront them on the sands then have them bungling their way around this place, already in much need of repair.
I don't need to look back.
Ken follows.
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Okay. I'm going to say something, and it's going to be a shock to some of you because it's very deep and profound and a lot of humanity doesn't expect that sort of thing to be coming from me. I dunno, maybe some horrible memo was passed around the planet at some point in my youth (or younger youth, which I will call youther), but for some reason all the people around me seem to expect nothing but sports talk and nonsense. I could make an effort to set the record straight for these people, but I'm a little short on time at the moment as I am on a rescue mission. This rescue mission is actually what led to what I am now about to tell you.
My deep and profound statement is as follows: I hate the desert. And honest, I know it sounds silly and stupid and certainly not deep, probably shallow really, but hate is big, you know. Hate is huge. Hate is like there's no way back, once you slide down the little graph and hit "Hate" you've really gone over the edge and you'll be hating for quite some time, if you ever get to stop hating at all. I don't think the desert's going to particularly mind if I hate it, which I do. It's hot, and there's sand in all sorts of places that I won't want to think about, and it's really hard to walk because you put your foot down and, whoop!, the sand moves. So considering the fact that it's really uncomfortable right now, I'd like nothing more than to break into a dead run and arrive wherever the D3 wants to lead me and find Ken and make sure he is, in fact, Ken, because he wasn't for a while, there, again, but see, there's this problem of the desert.
Maybe it isn't so much that I hate the desert as the desert hates me. Why else would it be so stupid and hot and … movey. I was all fired up to end this thing as soon as we left my house, but somewhere between the Digital Gate and here the "righteous fire" turned into a worried sort of sick feeling. It must be showing on my face; Yamato and Taichi are walking along on either side of me (Yamato with so much sand blown into his gelled-up-hair that the sheer weight of him could be about to topple him), and they keep tossing glances at each other, and then at me. Like I don't know they're exchanging looks, or that I don't know what they're thinking. I do know, and they're thinking that maybe I can't handle this because it's gotten too personal. But see, that's exactly why I have to.
Fact is I'm the one who's supposed to be leader here, right? Aside maybe from Taichi, who's a leader in his own right, but on an outing like this I think I'm the leader. I'm the one who's tracking Ken (by use of D3, which I guess sure we all have). To hell with that, I'm the one who's dating Ken. If by some fluke of fate Yamato went all villainy then there would be an outing and Taichi would be the leader and that'd be that. But that's not how things are.
So I'm the leader, but I know I'm not really acting like it. I'm at point in the group, I'm leading the way, but am I the leader? The leader's supposed to be all controlled like and calm and collected. I'm so not ANY of that right now. I was okay when we left my house, like I said, but there's a lot of walking in the desert and not much to do while you're walking except think. And the more I think (a dangerous pastime that I try to avoid most of the time) the worse I feel about this.
I mean, think about it, honestly. There has to be something seriously messed up going on. I can't even guess at what started this all this time. Ken and I have talked, a little, about what brought about the Kaiser in the first place… you know, his brother dying, some big black ocean, though really even Ken himself doesn't seem to be too sure of the specifics. There's this Ken-Kaiser-Ken routine and maybe history repeats itself.
If we find him, and he isn't Ken, I don't know what I'm going to do.
"Daisuke," Yamato says, suddenly, his low voice sounding almost as down and serious as mine in my own head, so I look at him wondering what sort of things the exchange-of-glances party he's had with Taichi have led him to decide.
And he smiles.
"It'll be okay," he tells me, with the sort of authority that makes it sound like it's really his decision on whether things are okay or not, and then looks back ahead of him. Taichi smiles slightly, at the corner of his mouth. I look at the both of them, and then I look over my shoulder at the rest of the group, who I'd almost forgotten was there.
Some leader, incidentally, forgetting about the very people he's leading.
Directly behind me is Veemon, looking serious (it's out of place on his usually cheerful self), but when I look at him he throws me a small encouraging little smile, making him look almost the way he should. Trailing behind him is the next cluster, Miyako and Iori (who's having an even harder time walking through the sand than the rest of us, what with his short little legs, but he's not complaining or saying a word…), with Armadimon scuttling along and Hawkmon gliding behind Miyako's head. Koushiro stayed behind, but I'm sure he's bent over his laptop somewhere and probably more aware of what's going on than we are.
Behind and slightly to the right of them, Hikari and Takeru have taken residence at the back of the group, and they're talking about something I can't hear. Patamon is on Takeru's head (perhaps to hide his ugly hat from the world's eyes) and Tailmon is at Hikari's side, though slightly ahead of her. When I look at her she's already staring at me, so I whip my head back around to the front and make a show of studying the digivice.
The indication of Ken has moved slightly since I last looked, and luckily for us it's coming in our direction. I bet he's using his to track us like we're tracking him, so we can meet in the middle. Actually, now that I really look at it, he's pretty damned close. I think I may be about to swallow my own tongue.
My world has stillness.
Sometimes while I'm playing soccer there's this moment I get. Maybe it's at the end of a game or right at the first whistle or during a really crucial kick, but sometimes when I play it happens, where all the other things around me, the audience, the teams, the field, whatever's on my mind, it just shuts up and takes a back seat for a minute, and there's me, and there's a ball. That's it. Everything else goes all freeze-frame, just me kicking a ball in a moment of complete stillness. Those are my game-winning kicks, usually. It's like all my focus pulls in and zeroes in on the ball and then it's all going to be okay. When I focus, and it's rare I know, but when I focus, nothing can stop me.
I feel like that now. Like the desert doesn't matter, like I'm surrounded by friends, and while I know they're there and I can feel them, I'm not seeing them at the moment. Not even Veemon, walking so close behind me he keeps stepping on my heels, he's not really in my focus at the moment.
It's me, walking toward someone, and it's that someone walking toward me. My heartbeat's gone unnaturally loud in my ears, and it carries a faint echo behind it, the hint of another heart in perfect time. I clench my fists and grin.
Time for the game winning kick, right?
Over one more sand hill, or dune I guess they're called, and it's starting to look familiar. This is because all deserts look the same, and every inch of every desert looks like the rest of it. But actually, it looks familiar because in the background there's the broken remains of the Kaiser's fortress. Last time we were here, Kimeramon was rampaging, Wormmon was deleted, and Ken threw a screaming fit and tore all his Kaiser clothes off.
Woo, memories…
There's a gust of wind that stirs up too much sand, so I stop, flinching back and trying to cover my eyes with my arm. There's a few other grunts and unhappy noises behind me, cos no one likes sand, but I'm not paying much attention to all that at the moment. We're too close to each other to dare think of something else until the actual moment happens and this is all resolved. Focus can't go until you've done what you've focused for, or you'll lose.
The wind dies, and the sand starts to settles, and when I pull my arm away from my eyes, there's a silhouette of someone standing about twenty feet ahead of us.
First whistle, Daisuke.
Let it be Ken, let it be Ken..
Game start.
let it be Ken, let it be Ken, let it be
"Motomiya," Kaiser purrs. "And all of his friends. How nice."
Fuck.
Behind and around me, I can hear the rest of the Destined gasp in recognition. I don't gasp but only because it's less a shock to me. I already knew he was back, considering he was straddling me earlier this afternoon. I said his name, even, and he grinned sharp teeth because it was true. He's in the outfit he used to wear, now, the one that turned to nothing but little pixel bits after the Kimeramon fiasco. Maybe there was a closet full of spares… and freaking crap, he's even got his whip.
"This… probably isn't a good sign," Yamato murmurs under his breath. Taichi snorts in some sort of reply, I guess. Miyako and the others step closer, so that it's one close-knit group facing Kaiser. Just how it used to be.
"Ken…?" Hikari asks softly, while Tailmon steps ahead of her partner slightly and folds her paws over her chest pointedly. Patamon has left Takeru's head in favor of hovering above it slightly, and Takeru has his hat in his hand. Maybe that big gust knocked it off or something. He looks grim, like maybe he was expecting this and didn't want to say anything. Iori has a similar expression, next to Miyako who's got both hands over her mouth and huge, shocked eyes. Hawkmon lands next to Armadimon, who's yawning. Closest to me is Veemon, who places one small paw against my leg, as though the little guy could steady me somehow.
Well, it works.
I swallow down whatever the million emotions that were in the way were, and straighten my back and shoulders. There's got to be hope (I'm not talking about Takeru), anyway. I still feel a heartbeat in time with mine. Ken's still here, Kaiser or not. The focus hasn't totally left me. I can still do this.
"I don't know what's going on," I say to his mocking little smirk. "But we're going to fix it, Ken."
He tilts his head, smirk growing by every word, and shakes his head slightly in feigned disappointment.
"Still haven't gotten my name right, Motomiya. If it's Ken you want to talk to, you're addressing the wrong one of us."
"What the hell does that m-"
And Kaiser shifts to the side, revealing what he'd been previously blocking from view with his caped and spikey-haired self.
My Ken meets my eyes with a mournful, guilty purple gaze, and Kaiser bursts out into laughter, probably at our expressions. I can only look between the two, dumbfounded.
I officially have no clue what the hell is going on.
… … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … … …
I had expected that Kaiser would gloat for the entire walk from dilapidated bastion to the small group of gathered children. It would have been in his character to use the time to perhaps tell me what he surmised their faces would look like, or the words Daisuke would use and the ways he might react. Kaiser seems to have a fascination for Daisuke in particular… I can only assume it's because of our relationship.
Which 'our' and which 'relationship', I can no longer distinguish.
We traveled without speaking, my past and myself, side-by-side at the beginning. His stride is longer than mine, somehow. It doesn't take long for him to get slightly ahead of me, and then wholly in the lead. He walks with authority as we walk in silence. I think he must be thinking.
Rather, I know he's planning.
Vague outlines of figures and people begin to be visible through the sand-thick wind, closer than I'd realized. I wonder vaguely just what Daisuke had to do in order to convince the older children to come, not from any disbelief in my comrades but just from knowing that, factually, most from that particular generation of Digidestined would be less inclined to rescue me as they would to punch me in the gut.
A sudden violent wind causes the sand in the air to thicken, so that for a few moments it's just Kaiser and I standing amidst walls of light yellow-gray. He turns slightly, eyes catching mine through the violet lenses of his glasses. His expression never changes, nor is there the slightest gesture… just one significant glare.
We do this his way, he's telling me, and there is no argument permissible.
I ignore the unease that this communication is simply passed between the two of us effortlessly. Very little should have the power to surprise or unnerve me anymore, considering the sort of day I've had. I nod slightly, and he situates himself in front of me as the wind momentarily calms and the sand settles into its new formations.
This is the closest we've been since I came here, Kaiser and I. The edges of his cape are ghosting along my legs as the wind alternates between teasing and buffeting. The dark riot of his hair wavers just slightly, held in place somehow whereas my own hair can't decide which way it wants to fly. His smell is oil and rust and animal musk. He gives off heat, just a trace amount but noticeable.
He truly is alive here. He has been made real.
What that makes me, I have yet to dare guess.
People are talking, children's voices, strained and questioning, and Kaiser replies in his unconcerned and confident manner. I can feel the rumble of his vocal cords and wonder if anyone ever noticed how different our voices really are… or is that just me, never hearing myself the way I really sound?
"If its Ken you want to talk to, you're addressing the wrong one of us," Kaiser says to the group with a sneer, and he abruptly takes a sweeping step to the left, opening my view to the world again.
The sense of Daisuke hits me like a warm wind. It's the equivalent sensation to stepping out from under a cement threshold, out from some cool and ancient crypt that's begun to seep into your lungs and bones with its own sort of comfort, back into natural noontime sunlight. I hadn't felt him at all a moment ago, and now he fills my being as I meet his eyes. The cherry chocolate depths are simmering with concern, and now they widen to implausible specs in his confusion.
Kaiser is laughing. The sound startles me out of the state I'd fallen into, wherein all that existed was Daisuke. It's not a bad state to be in, but perhaps now is not the time or place. I can see the other Digidestined gathered around Daisuke, lending their support or at the very least alternatingly staring from Kaiser to me and back around again. I'm sure they were lending their support just a moment ago. The digimon are here as well, excluding Ishida's and Yagami's who wouldn't have been in the real world to begin with, though they may well be on their way here.
No one seems to know what to say. Kaiser just continues laughing, holding his sides and nearly bent over, shaking as though the mirth would tear him apart. I suppose he hasn't had a good laugh in quite some time, being reduced to nothing but giggles in the back of my thoughts until just recently.
Ishida… no, I've been trying to use their first names, now… Daisuke insists we're friends, after all, so… Yamato tears his gaze from Kaiser and stares at me, clearing his throat rather brusquely.
"Are you alright, Ken?"
What a stupid question.
But I lie and nod, and at least the moment has passed. Some of the tension passes away; the children seem to be able to breath again.
Taichi glances toward Daisuke, but he hasn't remembered how to talk quite yet and so the leader of the preceding generation takes the initiative in his stead. It's interesting how you can observe how the whole group dynamic works when you're standing slightly apart from it. I feel as though I am an impartial observer, and not truly in the middle of this all.
"I don't really know what's going on here," Taichi declares (and Kaiser snorts in utmost amusement, finally shaking off his laughter), "but to begin with, we're taking Ken back."
"Why, Yagami," Kaiser replies, standing to his full height (it's not much, granted, we aren't the tallest of adolescent boys) and flexing his fingers with a slight creak of fabric, "you sound as though Ken was one of you to begin with."
"He is," Iori says flatly, his eyes dark and serious, watching us all measuringly from beneath the bangs of his bowl cut. "Don't bother trying to convince us otherwise."
"We've been through your sick mental games before," Miyako adds, frowning. "We don't wanna hear it anymore and we're not gonna listen anyway, so save your breath."
Miyako I of course expect to defend my name until the world ends. Iori, however, will always vaguely surprise me when he speaks in my favor. Perhaps I do him an injustice in this.
"If this is how you treat me," Kaiser sighs, "I don't understand how any of you can be all that nice to Ken. You'd think there were some sort of difference… though perhaps there is, now." A slight tilt to his head and glint at the lens-edges of his glasses, a slight prickle to the back of my spine tells me that he's looking at me closely from the side. Kaiser always looks at things in terms of how they work, how he can use them, or how he can dissect them. It's no wonder that to be subject of his studious stare is disconcerting.
I try to ignore it anyway, and note that the digimon are all glaring at Kaiser as though they'd like to trample him into the dunes. I remember that glare, and as I recall it never particularly bothered me.
Him.
Whatever.
"There's a huge difference between you and Ken," Takeru says, pulling his hat back over his head. "We don't expect you to understand."
"Why don't we ask Motomiya," Kaiser suggests with a sly grin, gesturing invitingly as Daisuke seems to startle out of a daze. "He knows us both the best, after all."
Daisuke glances between the two of us, apparently still trying to make it add up in his head, and cautiously asks, "Ask Motomiya what?"
"Whether or not there's really so much of a difference between Ken and I," Kaiser replies simply. "You'd be the best equipped to answer, Dai-chan, having been so … intimate… with the both of us."
"That's 'cos you're a sick bastard who li-"
"All of that aside," Taichi interrupts, "we are here for a reason."
"Of course," Kaiser nods, "to welcome me back and congratulate me on my long-awaited return. You have all done so spectacularly and I thank you for coming out this far. However, I will be requiring Ken's services for a while longer, so you'll be returning without him."
"Forget it," Yamato cuts in. "We're not leaving without Ken."
It probably should be bothering me that I'm being discussed in the third person while I'm standing right here, but it really isn't. It's helping me to remove myself from the situation, and we must all remember that escapism is my favorite trap to fall into. It's the only one that works, even if only providing a temporary relief. As I'm trying to pretend that none of this is happening, however, Daisuke meets my gaze and gestures me over discreetly.
As though Kaiser would let that happen. I shake my head slightly as it wouldn't do any good. He's probably watching the exchange anyway, and if he's said that he isn't through with me yet, then he really isn't, and that being so he isn't about to let me just stroll away.
The other Chosen Children may not quite understand this. It's better for them, though, because that means he hasn't looked at them, not that they've been aware of. You have to understand the way he works once you lock eyes with him, I don't understand how anyone couldn't. Meet that flat, lightless glare once and you'll grasp that he will have things his way or he will simply crush you.
Daisuke, of course, has been looked at in such a manner, but he's too optimistic to face the sort of weight that it comes with. Daisuke believes in options. That's probably why our relationship works at all.
"We're going to have to settle this here, aren't we?" Takeru asks. "It's the only outcome if you won't let us take Ken and we won't leave without him."
They'd fight for me?
"I prefer to look at it in terms of 'I won't let you take Ken and you're all too imbecilic to realize there's nothing you can do about it'," Kaiser says with a shrug. "Furthermore, I'm interested into why no one has asked Ken himself what's going to happen, here. Equal-opportunity heroes such as yourselves ought to keep these things in mind."
"Ken's coming with us," Daisuke insists. Fierce nods of agreement all around the group, with digimon at the ready and hands hovering over digivices. They really would fight for me.
The problem to that is, I believe they would lose. Battles should not be fought on a battlefield covered in so many insecurities and missing information. No one knows how Kaiser can even exist here, outside of me, other than me, how he got here and how he remains here and what he intends to do. No one has any clue, least of all me, what else he could be capable of. To engage a combat lacking in all of this information is to openly flirt with the destruction that would ensue. They would lose.
Hikari is the only one who hasn't moved, hasn't spoken, and though I usually try to avoid her eyes, for once I seek them out. She's the only one among them with eyes that have seen the Dark Ocean, and I need to know what she sees now.
The Child of Light looks troubled and sad, like she feels she should speak up but would never be heard over the sound of the waves. She says all that she needs to with just her eyes, and all that she needs to say is just that she understands all this.
She knows they can't fight Kaiser, and she knows I can't let them.
How nice for at least one thing to be simple.
So I tell them, "I can't."
Sand settles.
And the questions explode, a barrage of "can't what" and "why the hell not" and "don't let him boss you around" and "why are you doing this". Under the noise Kaiser makes one small sound, an amused little hum, and the tips of his fingers brush against my wrist.
"Somehow you're much less fun and yet so much more delightful when you've learned your lessons," he murmurs to me. "For being so good, I suppose I'll even let them all go."
I jerk my hand away and say nothing.
"Ken," Daisuke whispers. "I don't understand."
Because you believe in options, Daisuke.
"I'll be fine," I promise him emptily, because I don't think it could possibly be true. "I think it has to be this way, if we're ever going to figure out what's going on."
"I'm not leaving you with him."
"You're going to have to."
His eyes narrow and spark, furious and desperate and I can suddenly appreciate why the Kaiser believes he is beautiful in his anger. Daisuke flares like an avenging sun.
Burning the desert itself.
"I won't!"
His digivice begins shining, and Veemon crouches, ready to change and begin a battle that can't possibly bring about any good. Kaiser smirks and beckons them all to try, and the whip is uncoiled and he's prepared one of his usual silken threats but before it ever meets air, a shaft of light and the dancing rearrangement of data cut through the sky.
Both sides, the Children and the Conqueror, halt their actions to see what comes of this, because neither of the digimon, not even Veemon, has begun to change; the display is separate from all that was previously here.
It finishes, and the new figure smiles grimly toward the Children before turning to Kaiser and I, arching an eyebrow slightly as Kaiser hisses in obvious distaste. To his credit, it doesn't much seem to faze him.
"Well," Gennai says finally, "looks like I'm just in time."
It will not be this long before another chapter. Never again will I allow more than a year pass by. I bet you no one even reads this anymore, and that's fine, honestly. You know I had to rewrite the Daisuke section five times? Graarh.
But anyway, now we see Gennai is here so things might get explained. That's what Gennai does, he explains things. And has eleventy million cousins.
On a similar and yet different note, if anyone has seen my muse, Adult Detective Ken, he's been missing for a few months now. There's a reward. Please hurry. Stingmon is so lonely.
The chapter titles for chapter 6, "I stick my hand into his shadow / To pull the pieces from the sand" are from, of course, a Tool song, "Third Eye". There are a million more where this came from.